Mechanics

Let me dismantle my body out of its ache for you,my curls have fallen back into their winter nap.They’ve inflicted pale upon themselves,it goes well with everything.These springs just dangle out of shape now,nowhere to go but down.My breasts have hid inside my rib cage,a self- inflicted incarceration,or maybe a liberation in backwards.My nipples in a daze,their flag in a half-mast.My thighs practice a routine of their own,they grow wide in the spring of pain,furnishing its dullness on display.My feet have denounced their pink innocence,they rest on sun-heated asphalt now,pain has grown on them like weed,Achilles’ wings to ever ever land.

The Mistake

The air in the trailer reeked of toilets and fermenting diapers. Grime itched her scalp. Holding the nursing baby in one arm, Eve grabbed a nit comb with her other hand and dragged it through her hair. Tearing her gaze away from the pre-GED test on the cracked screen, she held the comb in front of her eyes, staring through the bent teeth, past the wriggling lice until they went out of focus, suddenly searching for the line of the brilliant green, no longer even the width of a hair, on the horizon.She looked down at the suckling baby, but a tablet screen blocked the little one’s face as one of her toddler brothers propped it against Eve’s breast so they could both stare into the screen and giggled, “Instagram!” to the baby who stopped sucking and wapped at the tablet’s camera icon. “Hey…” Eve protested to the older sibling, but she couldn’t see his face either and blanked on his name.After the birth of the baby, women have the capacity to reach the highest possible peak of oxytocin.Eve tried cooing to the infant, and sought once more to meet her eyes, but the critical, sensitive period, that initial precious hour had been disrupted so many times by Adam, by yet another child, by Father, by a computer, by a tablet, by a smartphone, such that she’d stopped being able to make that pupil to pupil connection.

A Symbol of Hope

Johnny sat down and stared at the coffee that the officer gave him. He watched the steam floating out of it so intensely that it seemed to be the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. Johnny was looking for the words, the whole story, exactly what he did and why he did it, how to explain himself without sounding selfish or pitiful.

The officer sat down parallel to Johnny. Pulling out a notepad, the officer asked again,“Johnny, please explain the whole situation. Just tell the truth and I promise that this will be as painless a process as possible.”Johnny did not look up at the officer; he looked around his cup to find a stir for the coffee. He found one lying near the cup, picked it up, and began stirring his coffee with it. Stirring his coffee helped him relax a little bit and think clearer thoughts. “I stole a tote bag of apples, a banana bunch, a loaf of bread, a set of plastic utensils, and a package of butter.” Johnny finally admitted, ending his sentence with a huge sigh. “Why did you take all of that Johnny?” The officer asked, perching his pen to his notepad, waiting to write down Johnny’s excuse. “Because,” Johnny began, now looking up from his cup, “life isn’t fair. I understand if that’s not a good excuse, but I’ve been so lost in hunger, in fear, and in depression. No one is willing to help me. I’ve held all the signs like a normal homeless man, I’ve tried going to the soup kitchen, or a homeless shelter, but everywhere denies me. I couldn’t get a hand out, I couldn’t get help from people who claim they’re there to help, it’s like I’m invisible. Like nothing around me is real. I’m lost in a cloud of darkness, eating away at my soul a little more with every eye that turns, every stomach growl, every ‘no’ I hear… Suddenly, I see a chance. I noticed that the grocery store was very busy, so, I walked in, grabbed a cart, and grabbed what looked good. I walked towards the exit and got stopped by someone; I told them I was just waiting for my mom, and when they walked away… I tried to walk out, the alarms went off, and you came and brought me here. I know what I did was wrong officer, but... That split second between the worker walking away and the alarms going off was… That was the first time I had ever felt hope in my entire life.”

The officer finished jotting down notes and then took a look back at Johnny. He began silently reviewing his notes, the silence made the air feel heavy on Johnny. Johnny thought that he was going to be taken away to a detention center and released in five years, when he turned eight-teen. The officer then put his notebook back in his pocket and stood up. “Johnny,” he said, “Do you promise that every word you’ve spoken here has been truthful?”

“I promise.” Said Johnny.

“You’re a homeless kid that no one will even give the time of day to?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will be back, Johnny.”

The officer then left the room. Johnny took a sip of his coffee and tried to calm himself down.It won’t be that bad,he thought,at least there will be food.After what felt like hours, the officer returned and asked Johnny to follow him. Together they walked out of the station and to the officer’s car. Johnny took a long breath in, and a long look around, as this would be the last breath of fresh air, and the last sight of the outside world, that he would get for a long time. The officer started up the car and they drove towards the detention center. As the building came into sight, Johnny began to shiver from fear of what it would be like inside. It drew closer and closer as Johnny’s fear heightened.Johnny watched the entrance of the detention center parking lot as the officer drove right past it. Johnny couldn’t believe it; he wasn’t going to get locked up. A huge smile came over his face and a tear rolled down his cheek. The feeling of hope embraced him like a loving parent. The officer drove further down the road and eventually pulled into the driveway of a tan painted, two story house with two square windows in the front of each floor, a beautiful mahogany porch, a tire swing in the front yard, and a rocking chair on the porch with a lady getting out of it. She came over to the car as the officer got out. They embraced and she kissed him as Johnny got out as well. She walked to Johnny and hugged him tightly. “Welcome home Johnny,” she whispered, “We’re going to give you the life you deserve.”Johnny felt a swarm of emotions overtake him and began crying in this kind woman’s arms. He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. Within a month, the officer and his wife obtained custody of Johnny. Johnny now claims that being arrested was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him, and the officer and his wife claim that Johnny was the best thing that had ever happened to them.Thank you for reading. God bless.

For Amelia

It was still dark outside the windows of her office, the only light from the lamp perched on her antique mahogany desk. Black-tipped nails traced the edge of her espresso mug, steam slipping past her fingertips. Hair like shadows shifted around her shoulders, darker than the last vestiges of night clinging to the earth. Her eyes were burning coals in the pale of her face; the only color was the blood red stain precisely painted on her lips.

It had taken years of planning, careful hedges and sweeping gains, but Morgan was so close she could taste it. Business conglomerates called her for even scraps of advice while world leaders ate out of the palm of her manicured hand. Stock markets rose and fell at the whim of her wardrobe; there had been considerable fuss the day she had discarded her Anna Sui for a simple Gap t-shirt. There were only a few more pieces to put into place, and Morgan Faye would have the world in the pocket of her Maison Kitsune trousers.

Her phone buzzed on her desk. Unthinking, she swiped across the screen; she had been expecting confirmation from one of her lieutenants.

Her thumb hovered over the image. Her mouth split into a grin, and her cold eyes became warm as embers, her snow skin melting into spring. The first rays of dawn slid through the windows, surrounding her like a halo.

Something in her gut shriveled in revulsion, only to be smoothed out like sugar at another picture of her niece. This time she was chewing on her fist and grinning at the camera like she knew her Aunt Morgan didn’t have time to be turning into a puddle of goo.

Morgan:No. She melts the blackness of my heart. It is inconvenient for world domination.

Gwen:God, she is such a jerk. I’ll tell her to cool it on the adorableness.

Morgan:You do that. I’m not going to get anything done otherwise.

There was a knock at her door before one of her security guards peered in. Her face instantly transformed into a beautiful, stone mask, the light streaming from the window turning pale with cold.

“Miss Faye? The board is here. They’ll be waiting in the conference room.”

She nodded, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. When the door was shut behind him, her face warmed again, spring blooming pink in her cheeks as she checked her phone again.

Gwen:You could use her in your domination campaign. She can be your Trojan horse. Everyone will be distracted by the cute.

Morgan tilted her head, contemplating the possibility. Her plans were usually webs of elegant subterfuge, but there was something of merit in disguising the takedown of the most powerful people in the country in the happy cooing of a baby. She considered most of them petulant children anyway, so it was karmic retribution.

Morgan:That’s not a bad plan. She would make an excellent minion.

Gwen:My baby is not going to be a lowly minion. How about a loyal second?

Morgan:Maybe when she’s able to hold her head up for more than five seconds.

Taking the last sip of espresso, Morgan rose from her chair to smooth down the front of her pencil skirt. She tucked her laptop into her Prada briefcase, smoothing her hair into submission. It wouldn’t do to keep the board waiting. Even if most of them were insufferable, they were still necessary at the moment.

Her phone buzzed again.

Gwen:It’s like a whole ten minutes now. Seriously, what kind of aunt are you?

Morgan pursed her mouth, thinking about it, before smiling bright as the dawn that had finally broke.

Morgan:The kind whose niece can look to for fashion tips and how to rule the world.

Gwen:I think the world is a little big for a six month old. How about an island to start?

She laughed, slipping her phone on silent and placing it into her briefcase. When the security guard opened the door for her, she was no longer laughing, though her blood-red mouth was just slightly quirked upwards. Her heels clicked on the floor, a rhythm like war drums, as the employees passing her by averted their gaze in reverence.

In the conference room, the board greeted her with hushed respect and a tinge of disdain. Her smile was like a knife; she feasted on men such as this.

“Well, gentlemen,” she crooned, “let us begin.”

She took out her notebook, poised to continue her domination of the known world, and paused just long enough to write:

The Mask of the Blue Belle

That’s when I saw it, sitting inexplicitly on the third step. I was keenly aware I had seen it before, and that the memory, though almost forgotten, had been important. Pivotal, actually. The silver sequins gleamed in the dull light. The bright, royal blue paint was perfect, unscratched. I stared, trying to place the time when I had once saw this thing before, the time when I had once worn it. Then the déjà vu moment faded into a faint memory from my childhood.I was eight. The Christmas lights in October stood out to me as odd. Mom had spent hours decorating our back patio into a masquerade paradise, adorning every cranny with white lights. On our brand new patio table, she layered wine glasses into a small tower. Champagne sat tauntingly on the table before me, eye height. The sparkling gold hue taunted me.

Pitman's Farm

I The Farm was a dead and derelict place. It was located seven miles outside the town of Angstrom, Howard County. It was beat-up property, which always drew ill-looks from the passersby. Most people in town avoided the farm and its withered, sterile lands. Cold winds blow there, and signs of nothing but sadness and decay rests upon the grounds. The farmland sits, perhaps, starved. Starved, like the rest of the area that surrounds it. At least, it seemed that way at the time. Mr. Pitman was always an outsider, even though he and his family were born and raised in the area for generations. Pitman had been a crazed recluse for as long as I can remember. There have also been a lot of stories about him and his farm since as long as I can remember. As fantastic as some of the stories were, I never paid them any serious attention. Being the County Sheriff, I’ve always felt I had to maintain a rational image. While the others tell their stories, I always have to be the voice of reason.Old Pitman was found dead on the dirt road leading to town. Death by suicide, so it was declared. Pitman, when I examined his body, looked like he hadn't had anything to eat in weeks. He was shrunken and exposed much like a survivor of the Holocaust. It was a disgusting sight to behold, to see this starved old man sitting on a table in the County Morgue. Especially the look in his eyes. It was a look I had never seen before. If I could judge it, it seemed a look a sheer terror. It was the look someone would give when some unnatural revelation presents itself, in great awe.

He Had to Walk Everywhere

It’s the day after performance review (Thursday, I think) that my coworker and I go looking for the 7-11 clerk that, supposedly, knows everything.It goes like this: businessmen, like my coworker, get bored. All that gray in the cubicle walls seems normal until they starting seeing nefarious plots and secret inner-workings behind it, but I guess I’m technically a “businessman” now, too. I’ve been with this company for two months, but somehow, I don’t see it lasting very long. I’m like a freshwater fish that got dropped in the saltwater tank. I’m drowning on land. I like my coworker. He’s an older guy and it was nice of him to invite me out for drinks, but I don’t want to end up like him.“This really happened,” he said, “to a guy I worked with.” “At this company?” I asked. We were sitting on the patio outside of a bar just down the street from our office. Most of the people around us still had their ties on. I wanted to believe him. It feels cliché, but I had to laugh just a little; your coworker comes at you with this crazy story. It was just the kind of story some crazy guy in a bar tells you, or maybe worse. Maybe some crazy guy in a parking lot?“Oh yeah. It’s why I pay really close attention whenever I cross the street,” he said. “Seriously. I know this sounds crazy, but there’s awareness in those things. It totally changed our workplace. Maybe you’ve felt a sort of strangeness since you’ve started here?”“So we have to be nice to traffic signals or they’ll arrange our mafia-style deaths?”He took a sip of his beer.

Ghost Water

I first drank Ghost Water before it was illegal. It came to me as one of those jewels of New Age geekery that fell from Melody's fingers like the impossibly bright droplet-lenses of dew that rained from the linden sapling she kicked on the morning after she first slept over. Wonders sprang into being around Melody, as she brought people and places and things together in a beautiful kind of semi-planned serendipity. Like the way that inviting my sister to come with us to the Inner Harbor to listen to Fizzy Lincoln at the Gypsy Cave somehow resulted in my sister falling in love with a blue-eyed, incandescent mess of a girl named Steph. They married and adopted a child from Belize. Or the way that Melody's dragging me to Burning Man led me to a gig designing wine labels for Lucien, who let us spend a perfect July in his house on Skiathos, in the Aegean Sea. Magical events, discoveries, and relationships manifested wherever Melody walked. Treasures. Buttercups sprouting from the footsteps of a fairy queen. It was her gift.

She gave me my first Ghost Water as a literal gift, offered with both hands as though it was frankincense or myrrh for the baby Jesus. Tearing away her wrapping of delicate mulberry paper revealed a short aluminum can, like those my mother drank Tab from so long ago. It was cradled in a springy net of thick, sturdy foam, like one of those perfect, Japanese gift-melons.Chinese words that could have been ingredient lists or marketing copy covered half of the sky-blue can. Drink it at home, before bed, she told me. No, she insisted, it was not like the Pocari Sweat or the milky Calpis Soda she'd made me drink before. Just try it, she ordered, in her radiantly not-to-be-denied way.